‘Shoot The People:’ Misan Harriman Talks Working With Director Andy Mundy-Castle On His Documentary Portrait

There’s an interesting flair to the work of the British documentarian Andy Mundy-Castle. In White Nanny Black Child (2023), he traces the legacy of Britain’s so-called farming experiment, where thousands of Black children from West Africa were adopted by white English families between 1955 and 1995, only to face widespread abuse and prejudice.

The film opens with archival footage and interviews with nine survivors before Mundy-Castle abandons the narrative structure he has built and brings all nine participants into one room to talk about their experiences. His camera is no longer probing; instead, it is observational, and the result is affecting. In The Fade (2012), Mundy-Castle weaves together intimate footage of four Black barbers working in their communities across three continents. There is no narration. Viewers are simply asked to observe each barber’s craft.

Mundy-Castle continues his experiments with form in his latest feature, Shoot The People, a documentary portrait of the artist and activist Misan Harriman. The film charts Harriman’s origins through interviews with the artist, intercut with interviews Harriman conducts with figures like Martin Luther King III, who inspired his artistic practice. The result is a neat but revealing insight into the life of Harriman, who rose to prominence in 2020 with his cinematic images of protest movements across the world.

Shoot The People was released theatrically by Watermelon Pictures last month and is now available on VoD. Ahead of the theatrical release, Harriman spoke with Deadline about why he agreed to authorize and participate in a documentary about his life and working with Mundy-Castle to build a narrative that would not only document his rise but also probe the contradictions of his career.

At the time, Harriman was coming off an onslaught of negative media coverage from right-wing newspapers and pundits in the UK after he questioned why news outlets failed to report on an Islamophobic attack in London. The reports were described as a “dishonest smear campaign” by Harriman’s supporters, including Greta Thunberg, Tracey Emin and Gary Lineker, who published an open letter in his defence. We also discuss the case with Harriman.

Shoot The People is now available on VoD.

DEADLINE: Misan, the documentary opens with you speaking poignantly about how you’re a Black political artist who has been able to work and speak publicly in a way that Black artists usually aren’t allowed to. That’s somewhat ironic now. How are you feeling after the last few weeks?

MISAN HARRIMAN: I’m great. I mean, to be an artist, as Nina Simone said, is to reflect the times that we’re living in, and I hope I come from a long line of artists that are trying to build bridges. I often think about Fela Kuti, who was an overtly political artist. There’s a difference between being an entertainer and an artist. I would like to describe myself as the latter.

DEADLINE: Misan, you’re in the thick of your career right now. Why did you say yes to participating in a documentary about your life?

HARRIMAN: People who look like you and me usually have to be dead for an opportunity to have a film like this made that tells our story. If you think about big films about Black artists, there have been very few, and they’re all dead. You have I’m Not Your Negro about James Baldwin. Then there was one last year about Ernest Cole; both of those extraordinary men had passed away before these films were made. I know my life is not a regular story, so I was excited to work with a great filmmaker and another son of the soil, a Nigerian man, in Andy. We don’t get these opportunities, so I thought I’d take this chance to work with a great filmmaker that I could also trust with my life. I had no editorial oversight. It’s all Andy’s view of who I am.

DEADLINE: I did wonder whether you were at all involved editorially or with the direction. I imagine it’s hard for a photographer to refrain from offering up advice in a situation like this?

HARRIMAN: No, you can’t do that. And we had Johann Perry, who is a world-class DOP. The only thing I tried to do was beg for us to use Leica lenses, which we did. And that’s why the thing looks so gorgeous. Johann is known for big Netflix shows, so to bring a cinema-level DOP to a doc doesn’t happen often. We were in good hands with Johann and Andy. And there was no mental space for that. They say history is written by the victors, and that’s why art is a very unique form of resistance. Whatever happens to us mere mortals living through this really precarious time in human history, hopefully my pictures, films and Shoot The People will show the totality of what I tried to do with the time I had.

DEADLINE: Talk to me about the film’s unique narrative. How did you land on this structure?

HARRIMAN: Andy thought, instead of making a linear documentary, Misan, you’re very good with people; they obviously feel safe and comfortable with you. With someone like Martin Luther King III, it was an image of his mother that changed my life. An image of Coretta at Martin Luther King Jr’s funeral that I saw as a kid, and there’s a powerful moment in the documentary where I show him that it was that image of his mama that really led me on this journey that I’m on today. I went back to my hotel after spending time with MLK III and cried. I didn’t understand why tears were coming out of my eyes. I think it was the adrenaline. I couldn’t believe he’d agreed to do an interview. And to have that documented by a great storyteller and archivist like Andy Mundy-Castle, in the way that he did…

DEADLINE: The film probes what many could describe as the contradictions of your career. You’re an activist, but you’re also known for shooting wealthy celebrities and people who are attached to what some would describe as colonial institutions, like Meghan and Harry. I was surprised to see that explored in the film.

HARRIMAN: Yes, it would be a promotional film about me if we were not honest about the multiplicity of my lived experience. I come from a very privileged background. No one can pretend that that’s not a fact, but Andy really probes. The answer I give in the film is something that I truly mean. If you’ve walked the corridors that I’ve walked, if you’ve been in the rooms that I’ve been in, you know how the deck is stacked for the few, and the way my mama raised me is to make sure that I use the tools that I have to break down those systems. I want my children to have less, so your children can have more, and I believe that that is the best way to try and fix this wounded world.

DEADLINE: Watermelon Pictures distributed this film. They’re a great, rising company. Was it difficult to find people that you wanted to work with on this project, considering it’s so purpose-driven?

HARRIMAN: With Watermelon, it’s just perfect timing. We saw them explode with every film project they’ve backed, getting nominations and doing incredible things. And when we met them, we just fell in love with them. We believe that cinema is a global village; it isn’t just the same gatekeepers to us. I’m always keen to lift people as I climb. I have the same ethos with the Black photographers I’m mentoring. When I see people who weren’t always allowed in the room doing work of the same quality as those who are, I’m far more attracted to working with them than establishment voices, because we can get to the same destination while creating a broader church.

DEADLINE: What do you want people to take away from this film?

HARRIMAN: There is no pillow as soft as a clear conscience. What I want people to take away from the film is that we’re better together, we shouldn’t be afraid of what we don’t know, change is not something we should hide from, and we should be in community. In that scene at the end, when the brass band is playing, and everyone’s walking together, all shapes and sizes, colors, creeds, that’s where hope lives. That’s community. Algorithms are going to try and keep us on what I call islands of rage, and it is left to us who have a platform to try and force us to see the shared humanity in each other. And that is what Andy has created in 90 minutes. The film touches on multiple movements across three continents, and it’s Black-led. Films like that don’t come around very often, and I’m really proud to play whatever part I have in Shoot The People.